What was wrong with Hannah greener?

Answer 1

Let No Patient be Harmed by AnesthesiaBy J.S. Gravenstein, M.D.

On October 16, 1846, Dr. Morton, a dentist, gave the first public and successful anesthetic. He used diethyl ether. The operation took place in the Massachusetts General Hospital. In a matter of months, the idea of rendering patients unresponsive through the use of inhaled drugs had spread to Europe and beyond.

On January 18, 1848, Hannah Greener required the removal of a toenail, a simple operation probably performed in the "office" of the surgeon. Hannah was a 15-year-old English girl. We do not know what her surgeon told her about the hazards of anesthesia. Maybe he said nothing about anesthetic mortality because there were no statistics he might have quoted. Had he said that she had a 99% chance of surviving the anesthetic, she might have considered anesthesia extraordinarily safe. She would have had a vivid image of the excruciating pain she would have experienced during an operation without anesthesia. Alas, she was unlucky. She inhaled chloroform from a cloth. In 1/2 minute her arm became rigid. The operation started. She gave a kick and sputtered at the mouth. Breathing continued for another 1/2 minute. Two minutes from the commencement of the operation she was quite dead (Snow, J: Edinburgh Medical Journal 1849,72; 75-87). The physician administering the anesthetic had no monitors other than perhaps a finger on the pulse and whatever information he could gather by inspection of the patient. He also had little knowledge about the pharmacology of the anesthetic nor of effective methods and drugs employed for resuscitation. He had no access to experts who might have stepped in to help before it was too late.